Joy Ride

I think this whole thing could be called a "joy ride," but today I got to leave all my stuff behind in a motel room and ride up to Niagara Falls, and that was especially fun. It's been a really lovely day - sunny but not too hot, after last night's thunderstorm (!!) cleared out the humidity. (I was safe in bed, yay.)

It's easy to make fun of the tremendously cheesy development around Niagara Falls - but the falls themselves are truly awesome. As in, awe-inspiring. I'm really glad I took the time to see them, and to just sort of hang out along the river.

I also noticed that the US side of the river doesn't seem to have so much green space... hmmm.

Canada, picnic table & grass; US, smokestacks...

I seem to spend a lot of time at laundromats, which is where I am now. I managed to ride across Ontario in just four days but used every stitch of my clothes to do it! So I'm stocking up on clean laundry, new tubes of toothpaste and sunscreen, and snacks to get me launched on the Erie Canal bike path starting tomorrow. I got to ride about 15 miles on car-free bike paths yesterday, which was fun, and I'm looking forward to the whole network of canal pathways. (Though I admit that today I rode on the road, instead of the bike path - I felt like going fast without my heavy load!)

I'm also re-routing myself, to end up in Boston instead of Maine. I realized since I'm going to visit my friend in Northampton, Mass. I might as well just keep heading east. What's shocking is how close Boston is! I'm going to get there in just a couple of weeks.

So I'm slowing down a little... dawdling across upstate New York so I can visit family in Ithaca, camp in some gorgeous state parks with Mr. Duncan (who's riding his motorcycle over), and hang out in Albany with Cyndi's sister Deb. Then I guess I'll dawdle across Massachusetts and around Boston (and Hull, and Cambridge...), and then some more lolly-gagging in St Paul before I end up back in SF. I guess that will be my summer vacation before getting back to work...!

Starting tomorrow I'll be camping again, so might not be online again until... maybe Tuesday, in Ithaca. Ithaca! Wow. This all still seems so impossible...!